For long and lonely hours, that seemed an eternity, he had been tossing in
a burning fever upon that disordered bed, until he verily believed himself
in a place of everlasting torment. He had that strange, double sense
which goes with delirium--the consciousness of his real surroundings, the
tapestry and furniture of his own chamber, and yet the conviction that
this was hell, and had always been hell, and that he had descended to this
terrible under-world through infinite abysses of darkness. The glow of
sunset had been to him the fierce light of everlasting flames; the burning
of fever was the fire that is never quenched; the pain that racked his
limbs was the worm that dieth not. And now in his torment there came the
vision of a seraphic face bending over him in gentle solicitude; a face
that brought comfort with it, even in the midst of his agony. After that
one wild question he sank slowly back upon the pillows, and lay faint and
weak, his breathing scarce audible. Angela laid her fingers on his wrist.
The pulse was fluttering and intermittent.
She remembered every detail of her aunt's treatment of the plague-patient
in the convent infirmary, and how the turning-point of the malady and
beginning of cure had seemed to be brought about by a draught of strong
wine which the reverend mother had made her give the poor fainting creature
at a crisis of extreme weakness.
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